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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
58 THE TRAVELS OF
also. The land is under the dominion of the Saracens, who have taken it by force of arms, and they are now subject to the Empire of DILI.'
Here be found sundry kinds of beasts, and especially black lions in very great numbers, besides monkeys and baboons, and bats as big as pigeons are here. There be also rats as big as here are our dogs called scherpi.2 And for this reason rats are there caught by dogs, for the mousers or cats are of no use for that.3 In this country every man path before his
1 I have ventured here, in justice to Odoric, to restore this name as I believe he really employed it. It is in the Latin text " subjacentes Dal-
dili." Odoric, doubtless, in his dictation, said " sotto la signoria del Dili." Thus, in Fra Mauro's map, we find tolerably well placed, DELI cittade grandissima," and the rubrick attached, " Questa cittade nobilissima za dominava tuto el Paese DEL DELI over India Prima," and again to the city of Here (Herat), " Quella era za sotto la Signoria DEL DELI", etc.
The same kind of fusion and confusion which has created a King Daldili has led to many other strange perversions. The ancient Malabar port and point of Hili survives in our maps only as Mount Deli. Marco Polo is made to call Lahore the city of Dilivar, and the Cilician port of
Aias—Laias ; whilst the name of King D'or, by which (according to Marsden's happy suggestion) he translated the title of the Chinese Sin
or Golden Dynasty, • appeared in the Latin editions as Darius. So we
shall afterwards find that the Tartar name Talai, which Odoric gives to the Yangtsekiang, becomes in most 1VISS. Doltalay ; and in the English
Mandeville we find the land of Dengadda and the Lake of Dasfetidee, for Engaddi and Asphaltites. An analogous case to that of King Daldili also occurs in the city where I write this. An English Archbishop of Palermo, whose name is believed to have been Walter (o' the) Mill, has been handed down as Gualterus Ofamilius.
A reverse process also is often found to have taken place. The Arabs have made the Lazarus of the Gospel into 'Azar ; we often see Germany
spoken of in Italy as La Magna; and from the Portuguese Laranja, a corruption of the Indian Naranja, we have got our English Orange, and the modern Latin form (implying a false etymology) Aurantia.
The west coast and the Deccan had been overrun by the Khilji Kings of Dehli in the early years of the fourteenth century, and were more or less subject to that empire at this time.
2 This word is written also scepi, depi, scoipi, sarpi, etc., because (it may be supposed) the transcribers, like the present editor, could make nothing of it.
3 As to the great bats and rats enough has been said in the notes to Jordanus (pp. 19, 29).
The word which I have translated bats is noctuce, but I think bats are
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